Cover photo: Simeon I’s army defeating the Byzantines, led by Procopius Crenites and Curtacius the Armenian in Macedonia. From the Madrid Skylitzes, the twelfth century illuminated manuscript version of the Synopsis of Histories by John Skylitzes.

Quite often, the image of the Bulgarian Empire under Simeon (913-927) is presented on Social Media with extremely “inflated” territories for Bulgarian dominance. However, the reality is different.

In a brief historical overview, Simeon, using the pretext of Emperor Alexander’s (912-913) refusal to comply with the prevailing treaty of the Eastern Roman Empire, invaded imperial territories, reaching the capital in August 913.

In diplomatic negotiations, the patriarch, as a representative of the anti-emperor, tried to exert pressure for a peace settlement, while attempts were made to approach the Pechenegs to strike the Bulgarians from behind. On the military front, the thematic and tagmatic army from Asia Minor restored Adrianople to the empire, but the defeat on the coastal Anchialos, where ‘the Romans were defeated in all respects and there was flight and frightful massacre’ on the black day of August 20, 917, brought pessimism back to the Roman camp, where the famous diplomacy took over.

Patriarch Nicholas canceled the negotiations of the Bulgarians with the Emir of North Africa (a necessary condition for the blockade of Constantinople), and the Bulgarian storm repeatedly devastated the Greek countryside. However, the Serbia of the ruler Zacharias cleverly joined the Roman camp and inflicted a defeat on Simeon. Despite the final victory of the latter, the Roman “diplomatic finger” drew from the quiver the almost perennial allies, the Croats, who defeated the Bulgarians in 926, and Simeon ‘lost all of them under him’. With his death on May 27, 927, the situation changed completely with the restoration of the territorial boundaries of 893.

Until the beginning of the 9th century, the Bulgarians were confined to the region of present-day Northern and Northwestern Bulgaria, with raids into the northern parts of Thrace’s inland. As early as 809, the Bulgarian tsar occupied Serdica (present-day Sofia) and crushed Nikephoros I at Pliska, south of the Danube River. The cities of Adrianople and Arcadiopolis, which they had captured a few years earlier, did not become new bases or parts of their state’s territory, but the populations there were forcibly moved further north, towards the areas along the Danube River. Philippopolis, captured in 836, soon reverted to Byzantine hands during the war of 855-856, along with all the coastal cities along the Black Sea that had also been seized. Frequent small to medium-sized raids often reached the walls of a fortified city and were repelled, although sometimes they ended tragically for the raiders.

After a long peace and the rise of Symeon I the Great, hostilities resumed, despite the significant victory of the Bulgarian tsar at Bulgarophygon in 896, Adrianople again fell under Bulgarian rule in 914. With a new victory at the Battle of Achelous in 917, they managed to paralyze the Eastern Roman Empire and influence as far as Thessaly and the Isthmus of Corinth in the Peloponnese, even crossing to the Anatolian side and besieging Lampsacus! Eventually, Symeon’s son, Peter I, concluded a treaty in 927 with the empire, annexing the inland territories of the geographical area of Macedonia. This lasted for about 40 years until Sviatoslav accepted the proposal of Byzantine Nikephoros Phokas and invaded Bulgaria, defeating King Boris II. Eventually, Byzantium would manage to crush even the Rus and fully incorporate Bulgaria, completely thwarting the Bulgarians’ last attempt for independence under Samuil when Basil II, known as the “Bulgar-Slayer,” put an end to them in 1018.

Closing this historical retrospective, in light of many recent historical works, such as the history of the otherwise noteworthy G. Ostrogorsky, the Bulgarian dominance is presented from west of Veroia and the Serbs to slightly north of Serres and Adrianople. According to the excellent A. Christofilopoulou, this mapping is deceptive.

The short-lived or even temporary presence of a foreign power in Roman territories does not imply the creation of a state or the incorporation of the foreign territory into the organizational structure of the invader, who passes through with his army and simply plunders, burns, and captures without leaving traces of state organization. State means organized central authority with administrative organs that will adequately exercise policy in every sector, whether it concerns direct administration, tax collection, conscription, justice, etc. During the reign of Simeon (913-927), the fact that raiders ravaged the countryside and the Roman population does not constitute in any case state organization to replace the imperial one. To confirm this, there is no relevant testimony or indication until now, at least. They might occasionally undermine Byzantine authority with destructive raids at various points, but didn’t attempt to replace it, evidence of their real dominance. In other words, they simply turned certain areas into a “gray zone” for a short period.

Sources

Scriptores post Theophanem

A. Christofilopoulou, “Byzantine History, 867-1081″, vol.2, publ. Vianas, 1997, Thessaloniki.

P. Sophoulis, “ Banditry in the Medieval Balkans, 800-1500″,  New Approaches to Byzantine History and Culture, 2020.